with love from
Michael.
This peculiar missive probably seemed less chilling to Philadelphia, who had never in her life before received a love letter, than it would have to most girls of twenty-one. On the other hand, it certainly did not arouse in her those emotions which the loved handwriting is usually supposed to evoke, and the reference to Lady Bobbin annoyed her a good deal.
Michael went to Lewes Park to settle up certain matters with his estate agent. He intended to stay there under a week. The day after he arrived, however, he caught a chill which developed into jaundice and kept him in bed for nearly a month. This circumstance very nearly altered the entire course of his life.
Before leaving Compton Bobbin he had an interview with his Aunt Gloria, during which he informed her of his intentions and hopes with regard to Philadelphia. Lady Bobbin was, of course, delighted.
‘My dear Michael,’ she said, almost with emotion, ‘this is the best news I could possibly have. How pleased poor Hudson would have been, too. We will discuss the business side of it another time – I have to go now and speak to the huntsman about a new horse – but I may as well tell you that I have always intended to settle £2,000 a year on Philadelphia if she marries with my approval, and of course when I die she will be fairly well off. I must rush away now, so good-bye, and we meet again on Tuesday?’
‘Of course she hasn’t accepted me for certain yet,’ said Michael with more than a touch of complacency, ‘but I may say that I have little doubt that all will be well in that direction. Good-bye, then, Aunt Gloria, thank you so much for my delightful visit.’
Philadelphia herself came back from Mulberrie Farm with her mind quite made up. Sally’s way of treating the whole thing as an accomplished fact had made her feel that it was so, and she only wished that Michael had not gone away and that they could begin all the exciting business, as outlined by Sally, of being engaged that very evening. She decided to answer his letter at once, begging him to return as soon as he could, and was going towards the schoolroom with this object in view when she ran into her mother.
‘Oh, Philadelphia, come in here a minute. I want to speak to you. Well, darling, Michael has told me your news and I am, I need hardly say, quite delighted. It is far the best thing that could possibly have happened, and we shall be able to announce your engagement at the dance I am giving the day before Bobby goes back to Eton.’
Lady Bobbin had the somewhat unfortunate effect upon both her children of invariably provoking them to argument.
‘But I haven’t any intention of marrying Michael,’ said Philadelphia defiantly. ‘He proposed to me, certainly, but I never accepted him.’
‘Then I hope that you will do so without delay,’ said Lady Bobbin acidly. ‘Michael spoke to me as though it was all settled.’
‘He may have settled it, but I haven’t.’
‘You really are a very silly obstinate little girl. Michael will make you a most ideal husband. Surely you like him, don’t you? What is it you have against him?’
‘Yes, I like him all right, except that I think he’s rather a pompous old thing,’ said Philadelphia, a phrase she had borrowed from Bobby.
‘Nonsense. Michael has a very proper sense of duty, of the responsibilities attached to his position in the world, and I am very glad that he has. You don’t want a sort of clown and buffoon for a husband. And in any case, if you don’t marry him you’ll probably remain an old maid, I should think. I can’t imagine that you will ever find anybody else half so suitable or so nice. And I may as well tell you, Philadelphia, while we are on this subject, that I am not obliged to settle a penny of money on you if you marry without my approval.’
‘All right,’ said Philadelphia sulkily, ‘I’ll think about it.’ She left the room, tearing up Michael’s letter into small pieces as she went.
In the schoolroom she found Paul, whom she had hardly seen all day.
‘Your grandmother was most certainly a genius,’ he said, looking up from the journal, ‘although in some respects her character was not everything that could have been wished for. But her prose seems to me even to transcend her poetry in literary merit, and her metaphysical conclusions are always faultless. Listen to this now:
‘One curious and very noticeable feature of the workings of a human mind is that so often it will seize upon and stress the unimportant almost to the exclusion of anything else. This it does most especially in dreams. Last night, for example, I dreamt that I was playing in the nursery with darling Julia when, suddenly seizing her teddy-bear, which I gave her yesterday and which cost me 4s. 6d. in the Baker Street Bazaar, she flung herself upon the blazing fire and was burnt to a cinder. In the dream (and this illustrates my point) I was worried far less by the extinction of poor Julia than by that of the bear,
